![The Garden Tiger moth, Arctia caja The Garden Tiger moth, Arctia caja](../images/arctia-caja.png)
The Garden Tiger moth (Arctia caja). To avoid predation by bats, this moth has a furry body that absorbs sound, including the sound of the bat sonar. But this moth takes a further step: it emits clicks that jam bat sonar. In effect, the Garden Tiger moth deceives the bat by aggressive counter-measures. Its approach is analogous to the deception tactics humans use to deceive each other using telephones, in that both the moth and the human send intentionally confusing signals. Bats and moths have been engaged in this sensory "arms race" for millions of years. Humans have been engaged in telephonic deception for less than 100 years. It's reasonable to suppose that human deception tactics will eventually become far more sophisticated than they now are. View a video of bat/moth interactions.
Photo courtesy Wikimedia.
People who suddenly reach into a pocket or purse and pull out a phone to answer it might not actually be doing what they appear to be doing. Maybe they just don't want to talk to you.
According to a study entitled, "Americans and their cell phones," by Pew Research, released August 15, among U.S. adults surveyed, 13% acknowledge having used their cell phones at least once in the past 30 days to avoid interacting with someone. I suspect that percentage would have been much greater if the survey had included other motivations, such as wanting to appear to be important or busy, showing off a new high-status phone, wanting to move to a more private setting where one is less likely to be observed, or any of dozens of other motivations.
Since deceivers are not always clever enough to pull off their deceptions, you can sometimes detect the deception if you're aware of the more common mistakes they make. For example, a typical error associated with the I'm-answering-my-phone ploy described above is forgetting to disable the ring tone. Nothing looks sillier than talking into a cell phone that suddenly begins to ring. When you see this happen, it's probable that a deception was underway. And if you suspect this deception, you can test your conjecture by calling the person on your phone, if you have their number. If you hear the physical phone ring, then it wasn't engaged.
Here is Part I of a little catalog of examples of deceptions involving the telephone, and some methods for detecting them.
- Circumventing personal cell phone bans
- When using personal cell phones is banned at work, some use this ploy: Make the call, put the cell phone on speaker or use a blue tooth earpiece, then pick up the desk phone without making a call on it, and continue the conversation on the cell phone. They then appear to be speaking on the desk phone.
- A typical mistake is to forget to warn, or fail to warn, the called party that the cell phone is on speaker.
- Phone borrowers
- Someone If you need an excuse to leave a
meeting early, having an actual
call come in on your phone
is usually good enoughwho wants to borrow your phone to make a call might actually make a call, but they might also want to have a look at your recent calls. - Borrowers rarely forget that you can watch what they do. Lending someone your phone is not a good idea, but at least you'll know what number they called.
- Faking incoming calls
- If you need an excuse to leave a meeting early, having an actual call come in on your phone is usually good enough. With a scripting language like AppleScript, and a Skype account, you can easily arrange it.
- Common mistake: forgetting to blank the screen and mute the sound of the computer that runs the script. Anyone passing by, with enough knowledge, can easily figure out what's happening.
We'll explore a few more tactics, and some serious security concerns, next time. Next issue in this series
Top
Next Issue
Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. More info
Your comments are welcome
Would you like to see your comments posted here? rbrendPtoGuFOkTSMQOzxner@ChacEgGqaylUnkmwIkkwoCanyon.comSend me your comments by email, or by Web form.About Point Lookout
Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and
found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.
This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.
Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.
Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.
Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.
Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
Devious Political Tactics: The Three-Legged Race
- The Three-Legged Race is a tactic that some managers use to avoid giving one person new authority. Some
of the more cynical among us use it to sabotage projects or even careers. How can you survive a three-legged
race?
There Are No Micromanagers
- If you're a manager who micromanages, you're probably trying as best you can to help your organization
meet its responsibilities. Still, you might feel that people are unhappy — that whatever you're
doing isn't working. There is another way.
Patterns of Everyday Conversation
- Many conversations follow identifiable patterns. Recognizing those patterns, and preparing yourself
to deal with them, can keep you out of trouble and make you more effective and influential.
Conflicts of Interest in Reporting
- Reporting is the process that informs us about how things are going in the organization and its efforts.
Unfortunately, the people who do the reporting often have a conflict of interest that leads to misleading
and unreliable reports.
Unwanted Hugs from Strangers
- Some of us have roles at work that expose us to unwanted hugs from people we don't know. After a while,
this experience can be far worse than merely annoying. How can we deal with unwanted hugs from strangers?
See also Workplace Politics and Ethics at Work for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming July 3: Additive bias…or Not: II
- Additive bias is a cognitive bias that many believe contributes to bloat of commercial products. When we change products to make them more capable, additive bias might not play a role, because economic considerations sometimes favor additive approaches. Available here and by RSS on July 3.
And on July 10: On Delegating Accountability: I
- As the saying goes, "You can't delegate your own accountability." Despite wide knowledge of this aphorism, people try it from time to time, especially when overcome by the temptation of a high-risk decision. What can you delegate, and how can you do it? Available here and by RSS on July 10.
Coaching services
I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrendPtoGuFOkTSMQOzxner@ChacEgGqaylUnkmwIkkwoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.
Get the ebook!
Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:
- Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
- Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
- Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
- Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
- Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
- Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )
Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info
Follow Rick
![Send email or subscribe to one of my newsletters](../images/social-icons/email-32.png)
![Follow me at LinkedIn](../images/social-icons/linkedin-reg-32.png)
![Follow me at X, or share a post](../images/social-icons/x-32.png)
![Subscribe to RSS feeds](../images/social-icons/feed-icon-32.png)
![Subscribe to RSS feeds](../images/social-icons/facebook-icon-32.png)
Recommend this issue to a friend
Send an email message to a friend
rbrendPtoGuFOkTSMQOzxner@ChacEgGqaylUnkmwIkkwoCanyon.comSend a message to Rick
A Tip A Day feed
Point Lookout weekly feed
![Please donate!](../images/donate-icon.png)
![Technical Debt for Policymakers Blog](../images/logos/techdebtpolicy-logo-sm-1.png)
Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group